Foundry, So close! But not quite there yet.

averagehuman · May 2013

Alright guys, we all know The Foundry is awesome. You can change the look of darn near anything, you can't change ANYTHING ELSE. Why? Why can't I choose what spells each encounter has? Why can't we make NPC's (or single encounter mobs) boss's? Why can't we place encounters on an individual basis? Why is there ANY limit on what we can place? I understand that the mobs have to be ready for any level to run through, but surely we should be able to alter say a % of a stat. Or even change the spell/item list of the mob so they attack differently. Let us actually FULLY control the encounter. Don't taunt us with the idea of freedom then rip away the best part! Don't get me wrong, The Foundry is an AMAZING innovation, and a lot of the content is really fun to run though. But if you gave us actual control over the entire encounter, they could be so much more! I hope this doesn't sound too negative or QQ'y. I just feel like this opportunity you have with this software is spectacular, and the possibility's could be endless! We just don't have the tools to truly customize an adventure yet.

TL:DR- While changing the ascetic and map is nice in The Foundry, we need more control over the actual gameplay and encounter structure to truly let our creative juices flow and unlock the full potential of this community!

P.S. To all those that say "Oh we can't take off the restrictions because people will abuse the system." News flash, that will happen anyway. If they want to power level all the way up to cap, let them. It's a side effect of letting your players make quests.

Just some thoughts.

- Jeff

sgsteihl · May 2013

Some of the qualms you've posted they've acknowledged and said they hope to eventually implement. I imagine they have to develop tighter safeguards and controls on certain foundry aspects before they give us more control. I doubt they'll add anything until they're fairly assured it won't be abused, that's just the way of things. As far as power leveling goes, that's not really the main concern. There are already people at the level cap without doing a lot of foundry, it's more a quality control concern. It'd be irresponsible of them to not make sure it's safe, and they'd be doing a bad job if they didn't.

averagehuman · May 2013

Well that's a little more on the promising side. At this point I'm more bound to think of the foundry as a Drag n' Drop with a built in Paint by Numbers feature.

sgsteihl · May 2013

averagehuman wrote: »

Well that's a little more on the promising side. At this point I'm more bound to think of the foundry as a Drag n' Drop with a built in Paint by Numbers feature.

It is a bit limited at the moment, even the big popular foundry authors have no problem admitting that. The most popular foundry missions, and the most challenging, they've found little tricks to make their content more interesting. There's even a ventrillo server where foundry authors will help you learn how to do certain things.. a quote from them sums it up "Until they add more, the foundry is about deceiving those that play your quest." Slight of hand can be very effective.

Here's to hoping they can get more added soon, as I see Foundry Quests being the backbone of this game.

sabo630 · May 2013

its still beta, I am sure they will add a lot more to the foundry and the game over time. Its a good start for sure.

and there is a hell of a lot in the editor, its just figuring out how to use it and figuring out tricks to work around any limitations.

wuhsin · May 2013

The main qualm I have is that NPC's won't take items, or give them, but that is easily worked around by adding a retrieve/stash interact with object quest objective. I'm sure they'll add bosses soon, plus more monsters. I doubt they'll give us the option to customize the monsters attacks/stats though as it would be abused.

zalorwolf · May 2013

Biggest complaint right now? It's broken.

wuhsin · May 2013

zalorwolf wrote: »

Biggest complaint right now? It's broken.

Indeed. Hope they fix it soon. Also, anyone have any ideas on how to find quests you've published when playing as a regular, non-foundry character? I've searched for mine numerous times and been unable to find it, which is discouraging since it makes it seem as though no one will ever see anything I publish.

thunderspanker · May 2013

There are some things the foundry just cannot do. But most anything you want to achieve can be faked, in some fashion.. Using the above example, the npc might not behave like you want them to, but you can use an invisible object to perform the same action, and have it require an object.. also, if you use an npc as a contact, and as an objective, he will do the default contact dialog till he or she is the quest objective, and then the dialog will change. (this might not seem like much, but confused the heck out of me for a while. lol.. i had no idea why they were doing that at first). The boss encounter thing would be awesome, but i find right now, that anyone doing my quests up to level 30 or so are fine.. but anyone above level thirty is having a bit of a difficult time, due to the game mechanics, so id be careful about how strong you want your boss to be, unless you are aiming to design a five-person dungeon.

Foundry, So close! But not quite there yet.

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